Now, as time passed on, the children of the laborers were also employed to assist in earning bread, and in the course of a few hundred years the school houses in the district of the laborers were torn down, as it was impossible for these children to receive an education, since they must needs work for their sustenance.

After many ages the members of the Trust had become so hardened that they no longer regarded the wishes of the laboring people, but pushed everything to increase their own selfish gain, insomuch that they succeeded in securing the passage of certain laws making the burdens of the laborers still more heavy.

And now, when the capitalists saw that the people did not rebel, they again counseled among themselves on this wise: 

“Why should there be so much labor lost in continually quarrying new sepulchers in our diamond ridges, and why should there be so much dust lying idle in the old graves?  Come, let us have a law that the dust in all graves over one hundred years old shall be sold at auction, unless the graves are redeemed by a certain amount of soil.  Then these empty tombs can be again filled with the dead of our servants and their children.  Thus let it be continued throughout coming generations forever.  Each year this auction shall be held to dispose of the dust remaining in one-hundred-year-old sepulchers.”

These suggestions found favor in the eyes of the Trust who proceeded at once to take the necessary steps to incorporate these regulations into the laws of the commonwealth.  The laborers stoutly opposed the adoption of these partial measures, but they were powerless because the Trust bribed enough of the legislators to carry their point.

All this happened many centuries ago, so that when I was there I saw the full program of one of these spectral auctions and was chilled with horror at the proceedings.

Every year this peculiar auction is held at each soil center.  The wealthy are able to redeem their sepulchers, but the poor, having no soil, cannot satisfy the law; so the dust of their ancestors must be sold.  Laborers are sent out to open the one-hundred-year-old sepulchers along the diamond ridges and carry the coffins to one place.  Here they are publicly opened and the bones and dust gathered into one receptacle after which the weird auction begins.  No one can compete with the corporations and no one tries.

[Illustration:  The Most Horrible Auction in Our Universe.]

The legal form of the auction is soon over and the half ton or ton of dust is legally bought by the corporations whose officers order it to be sprinkled over the gardens.  It serves the same purpose as phosphate in our fields.  This awful process is repeated each year.  The sepulchers, emptied thus, are open for new burials.  So you can see that with all the gruesomeness of this whole business, there is an economic side to it, and the people have come to view it all in a philosophical manner.